KD7RTO
Bountiful, Utah

Logbook

Memberships

Davis County Amateur Radio Club
Utah VHF Society

My Equipment
Utah Monitoring Page
Nevada Monitoring Page
Northern California Monitoring Page
My Signalling Page CTCSS and DPL, Trunking, Encryption, P-25, Digital Paging

Plans and Schemes

Fall-Winter 2011

Thanks to a 10 PM news report on the First of December, I climbed up on the roof with a flashlight and hastily removed the 10' mast containing my Diamond DJ-130J Discone and 12 element 900 Mhz yagi. My QTH is smack in the middle of the worst hit area by this year's prolonged windstorm. Immediate neighbors had large trees uprooted and lost roofs. The structures on my property faired very well, just a few damaged shingles and a 14 hour power outage. Finding one of the high tension power lines that run across the back property line had snapped was a bit unnerving. Fortunately it snagged in my tree, unstead of whipping around and causing destruction and danger to people. For my household, this provided an excellent preparedness test. The most significant lesson learned and action item moved to the top of the list: those were a cold 14 hours, with no alternative heating source for the house.

The Diamond Discone and 12 element 900 Mhz yagi are back up, and the ladderline fed inverted V, 30' in each direction, is reattached. Two projects are currently in progress:

#1 - Logging and identifying active talkgroups and radio ID's on UCAN, in order to update my lists, last compiled in 2009.

#2 - Logging all active frequencies and CTCSS codes in use from 150.8 - 162 MHz, making sure I've at least got all public safety identified, and have made a good start in identifying business users.

2012

It will be a while before I buy another radio, because in 2012 I've got some very ambitions antenna ideas. This year, the money in the hobby budget goes up on the roof!

Just before the 6-meter band opens up in May, my three present antennas come down, and up will go a 6-meter yagi (specific model and number of elements not yet decided), a Hy-Gain CLR-2 groundplane vertical tuned for 10-meters, and a coax fed 20-40-80 meter trapped wire antenna. From there I will probably add a Wellbrook ALA1530L active loop.

In the Fall I'll do some head-to-head tests and decide between the Diamond Discone, or the Cushcraft AR270 dual band ringo, which one better suits my needs. On the other tripod I look forward to mounting a Yaesu G-5500 vertical-horizontal rotator for satellite work, with a 2-meter yagi, 70-cm yagi, and an L-band helical.

Bio

I've been interested in electronics and radio communications since childhood. As a kid, my DX-160 receiver provided many hours of enjoyment, exploring the bands below 30 MHz. While in college, I passed the Novice theory, General theory, and 5 wmp code tests, and got on the air as N6ORZ in January of 1987.

A year later, I completed my AA in General Education, with a Certificate of Achievement in Industrial Electronics.

From 1989 to 2000, I worked as a technician for several 2-way radio businesses in California and Utah, mostly small shops, selling Uniden and Maxon products, and operating community repeaters and LTR trunked systems. My time with Motorola shops totals about a year, and I am NOT a believer in the myth that the construction of Motorola radios is far and away superior to other brands.

Since 2000, I've worked in the cellular industry, as a cell site technician, as a switch tech, and as a switch equipment installer.

In 2002 I upgraded to general and received the (non-vanity) callsign KD7RTO.

This page last updated on Wednesday, 21 December 2011